This video can not be played
To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Callum Grubb is only 19 but he lives his life as if it is the 1940s.
Nearly everything he owns is from the time period, including his clothes.
The teenager drives a black 1938 Austin Cambridge, only uses a telephone from the 1940s, and rides a 1952 Raleigh bicycle.
"I joke to my friend, that it's gone beyond an obsession," he says.
"I'm as old-fashioned as they come."
Callum's car is 10 years older than his grandmother, Anne, who he has lived with at her home in Kirkcaldy, Fife, since he was 12.
And while 75-year-old Anne regularly uses a mobile phone, her grandson does not even own one.
"I'm rubbish with technology," Callum says.
"I was forced to have a laptop for college, and I hated it."
Callum says he fell in love with the 40s during his first year of high school.
"I've always loved history," he says.
"When I was younger, I looked at my great grandad's prisoner-of-war diaries and I just love everything about the period."
He now collects everything related to the period, such as oil lamps and a vintage record player that he uses to listen to his favourites like Vera Lynn, Anne Shelton and Frank Sinatra.
"I couldn't tell you a modern singer if you asked me," he says.
However, Callum told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme - via his 1940s Bakelite rotary-dial telephone - that there is one thing from the post-war period he definitely does not do.
"We don’t ration,” he says. “I like my food too much for that."
Callum's latest addition to his vintage collection is his car, a 1938 Austin Cambridge named Poppy.
He had been saving up for the purchase since he was 13.
"Callum just came and told me, 'I want an old Austin'," his mum Claire says.
"I didn't think it would ever happen."
He bought the car for £7,000 in early November from a man he met while visiting a museum.
"It has no seatbelts, but I absolutely love it," Callum says.
He has the original invoice showing the car cost £215 in 1938, the equivalent of about £18,000 today.
It is not illegal to drive a classic car without seatbelts - and Callum has driven his nearly every day since he got it.
"It's like you are back in time, especially when you get into the old country roads," he says.
"The car survived the blitz in London but it can only reach 50mph and even that is pushing it," Callum laughs.
"It's great to drive, there's always a clear road ahead but behind a sea of traffic.
"But folk don't tend to mind," he adds.
Callum is regularly seen around Kirkcaldy in his car, and has become a local celebrity.
He was even invited by a local bakery to park his car outside the front of their store for a grand-opening.
"People of all ages wave at the car, old and young alike," Callum says.
But he regularly takes the car further afield than Kirkcaldy.
"We love to run along the coast in the old car, my friend Lynsey and I," he says.
"I usually stop at the antique shops along the way because it can be hard to get some of my clothes.
"My gran dreads me coming home because she knows I'll end up bringing something back with me."
Callum says people used to be shocked when he said he did not have a mobile phone.
"I keep very busy, I assure you," he says.
He spends a lot of time with his car, maintaining and servicing it, even though it does not require an MOT or road tax, like all cars manufactured more than 40 years ago.
When Callum isn't with his car, he's out with friends or working at the local dog kennels.
He says he has friends of all ages, although he admits he shares more in common with people much older than him.
"I always get to chat to older people, they tell me they remember their dad or granddad with the car when they were my age," he says.
Callum's gran, Anne Walker, says her house has become the epicentre for Callum's collections.
"I wake up to a picture of Winston Churchill and an old vintage car," she says.
Callum has lived at his gran's house since he was 12, after his grandad, John, suddenly passed away. He's kept her company ever since.
"I've learned more about history from Callum, than I've ever known," the 75-year-old says.
"We always watch old films together, he's in love with Ginger Rogers," Anne says.
Callum's mum, Claire, is a nursery officer at Fife Council, and says she has always supported his decision.
"Callum went away on a school trip when he was about 12 and came back with an old-fashioned hat on," she says.
"I thought it was funny, and I just asked him, 'Where did you find this?'.
"He said 'that's the way I want to dress, that's going to be me'.
"Ever since then, that's just been Callum," his mum says.
Claire says that Callum is doing great, and she's watched him blossom into a 1940s gentlemen.
Callum says he can't understand other people's fascination with his collection.
"You never think you're that interesting" he says.
"This is just my life."
Callum says: "A lot of these cars sit in a museum and are never used, but that's not what they're for, they're meant to be used.
"So that's what I'm doing.
"It's good to see the reaction, I always go by and beep the horn."
"like this" - Google News
December 08, 2023 at 05:57AM
https://ift.tt/3LKOojn
The teenager who lives like it's the 1940s - BBC
"like this" - Google News
https://ift.tt/hiTlNuE
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment